Pushing through the crowd, I feel people fall against me as I step over bodies on the floor. I don’t want to think about who they might be and if innocent lives will be lost in this. The whole way, Leo is at my back, shielded by my size and strength. When I make it to the other side of the room and to the corner next to the exit, I pin Sienna to the wall.
“Don’t. Move,” I order, and in the dim light of the emergency exit sign I see her wide eyes filled with fear. She’s strong, though, because she doesn’t break eye contact as she nods.
I grab Leo and put him behind me as I turn to face the crowd, keeping the two of them at my back. Someone comes running in our direction, but I’m not sure if they’re after me or the guards. I’m ready either way, and I drop my shoulder and shove against him. He goes flying back, and I plant my feet, ready for the next attacker.
It feels like hours, but it’s not long before dozens of guards have entered the room and are breaking up the fights. Finally, word of the riot has reached the rest of the prison. But I don’t relax my position until I feel a hand on my shoulder.
When I turn around, Leo nods, and I straighten. Then a guard comes over and is shouting for Sienna to move so she can be escorted out with the other civilians. The guard is yelling for everyone to get down with their hands behind their backs, and the noise is deafening.
“Go, get out of here,” Leo says to Sienna as she gives him a quick hug.
Before I realize it, she’s in my arms and squeezing me. “Thank you,” she says softly and then she’s gone.
I open my mouth to say something, but I feel a quick sudden pain on the back of my knee. I groan as I fall to the ground and I look up to see the guard has hit my leg with the butt of his gun.
“On the ground!” he shouts, and I do what he says while putting my hands behind my back.
Leo is next to me doing the same as a guard stands beside him, clearly protecting the king. Where the fuck were his men earlier?
“This one is bleeding,” the guard who hit me says, and then I remember getting stabbed in my side. It’s probably going to need stitches. “Get the cuffs.” As he’s fastening the metal around my wrists, I turn to face Leo.
“You’re Tupuola,” Leo says, not asking the question but confirming the answer. I nod, and his eyes bore into mine like he can see straight to my soul. “I won’t forget today,” he says before three guards haul me off the floor and to the infirmary.
I’m counting on it.
Chapter Three
Sienna
“Honey, are you sleeping okay?” Margaret asks me as she stirs a giant pot of sauce. She’s been like a grandma to me over the years, and I can’t remember a time she wasn't here. She’s in charge of running the estate to keep it in top shape and I’m guessing keeping an eye on me as well.
“Not really,” I admit. She puts the lid on the sauce and starts to make me a cup of tea. She thinks tea is the cure to everything, as long as it has extra honey, of course.
“I hate that you had to go through that. I know it was scary.”
Scary is putting it mildly. I knew prison was a rough place, and I’d even imagined things like that happening there. Actually seeing it was something else altogether. I could’ve sworn that inmate with the knife was coming after me and not my dad, but I don’t know why.
Then he saved us both. Cold blue eyes flash in my mind, and somehow they don’t make me afraid. I haven't been able to stop seeing them since I left the prison, and I even dream about him at night. I wake up with my hand in my panties begging him to take me. Why does the first man I’m attracted to have to be in prison?
“He’s not going to let me come back.” It makes my heart ache to admit that out loud.
“Give it time, Sienna. I’m sure he’s still a bit shook up. He’ll let you come back after he handles things.”
I know what she’s alluding to. Once he figures out who set up what went down in the visitor center and does away with them. Margaret makes it sound as easy as taking out the trash. I suppose it is for my dad.
“I wrote him a letter. It might be nice for him to have something from me.” I wrote Kai too, but I don’t tell Margaret that.